Regular Music Listening Enhances the Recovery of Stroke Patients

It has been known for a long time that listening to music has significant health benefits: not only it enhances the emotional state of a person, but it also activates many regions of the brain, responsible for memory, motor functions, attention, language and reasoning.

Considering that the role of music in the neurological rehabilitation of patients has been very poorly investigated, a group of researchers from several Finnish and Canadian Universities and Hospitals decided to determine whether regular music listening can speed up and enhance the recovery of cognitive functions and prevent negative mood in patients who suffered stroke.

According to the article published in the journal Brain in 2008, the study group consisted of 60 patients who suffered stoke and were chosen from the Department of Neurology of the Helsinki University Central Hospital. The patients were randomly distributed into three groups, with 20 patients in each group: a music group, a language group and a control group.

The research started after all patients received a proper medical care and rehabilitation: patients who were chosen for the music group were given portable CD players and CDs of their favorite music. Patients who were part of the language group were given portable players and audio books recorded on cassettes, selected by the patients. The patients in these two groups had to listen to the given material for at least one hour daily during the following 2 months, whether they were still in the hospital, or at home. The patients of the control group were not provided with any material to listen to.

Tests conducted by specialists showed that after 3 and 6 months of post stroke recovery, the verbal memory recovery was significantly better in the music group than in the control group or in the language group, as well as was the recovery of focused attention.

Taking into account that patients are very emotional during the first several months after the stroke, often feeling sadness, passivity, lack of adaptation, and aggressiveness, researchers elaborated tests that showed that patients in the music group experienced depression and confused states significantly less than others. The results of this research are supported by brain imaging data.

Once more, researchers provided scientific proof of the fact that regular music listening has great health benefits: besides improving spelling skills in dyslexic children, and speech content and fluency in dementia patients, regular music listening also enhances verbal memory and focused attention recovery and improves mood in patients who suffered stroke.

Source:Brain (2008), vol. 131, pages 866-876, doi:10.1093/brain/awn013